Jenny Preece

A multilevel analysis of sociability, usability, and community dynamics in an online health community

The aim of this research is to develop an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of online group interaction and the relationship between the participation in an online community and an individuals off-line life. The 2½-year study of a thriving online health support community (Bobs ACL WWWBoard) used a broad fieldwork approach, guided by the ethnographic research techniques of observation, interviewing, and archival research in combination with analysis of the groups dynamics during a one-week period. Research tools from the social sciences were used to develop a thick, rich description of the group. The significant findings of this study include: dependable and reliable technology is more important than state-of-the-art technology in this community; strong community development exists despite little differentiation of the community space provided by the software; members reported that participation in the community positively influenced their offline lives; strong group norms of support and reciprocity made externally-driven governance unnecessary; tools used to assess group dynamics in face-to-face groups provide meaningful information about online group dynamics; and, membership patterns in the community and strong subgroups actively contributed to the communitys stability and vitality.

Dynamic changes in motivation in collaborative citizen-science projects

Online citizen science projects engage volunteers in collecting, analyzing, and curating scientific data. Existing projects have demonstrated the value of using volunteers to collect data, but few projects have reached the full collaborative potential of scientists and volunteers. Understanding the shared and unique motivations of these two groups can help designers establish the technical and social infrastructures needed to promote effective partnerships. We present findings from a study of the motivational factors affecting participation in ecological citizen science projects. We show that volunteers are motivated by a complex framework of factors that dynamically change throughout their cycle of work on scientific projects; this motivational framework is strongly affected by personal interests as well as external factors such as attribution and acknowledgment. Identifying the pivotal points of motivational shift and addressing them in the design of citizen-science systems will facilitate improved collaboration between scientists and volunteers.

A psychological investigation of long retrieval times on the World Wide Web

Abstract With the increasingly rapid uptake of the World Wide Web, even those pages classed as ‘the best of the web’ are not immune to large download latencies. This paper investigates whether the latency between requesting a page and receiving it influence user perceptions of the page. The paper describes a study in which users are presented with seven different web pages with delays ranging from 2 s to 2 min, and are then asked to rate the pages on a number of criteria. Predetermined delays were injected into the page loading process. Pages which were retrieved faster were judged significantly more interesting than their slower counterparts. The implications for web page design are discussed.

Empathy and online interpersonal trust: A fragile relationship

The rapid growth of personal email communication, instant messaging and online communities has brought attention to the important role of interpersonal trust in online communication. An empirical study was conducted focusing on the effect of empathy on online interpersonal trust in textual IM. To be more specific, the relationship between empathic accuracy, response type and online interpersonal trust was investigated. The result suggests both empathic accuracy and response type have significant influence on online interpersonal trust. The interaction between empathic accuracy and response type also significantly influences online trust. Interestingly, the results imply a relationship between daily trust attitude and online interpersonal trust. People who are more trusting in their daily life may experience more difficulty in developing trust online. There is also some evidence to suggest that different communication scenarios may have an influence on online trust.

Silent Participants: Getting to Know Lurkers Better

Why do lurkers lurk and what do they do? A number of studies have examined people’s posting behaviour on mailing lists (Sproull and Kiesler, 1991), bulletin board systems (Preece, 1998) and Usenet newsgroups (Smith, 2000) but studying lurkers is much harder because you don’t know when they are there or why. Although lurkers reportedly make up the majority of members in online groups, little is known about them. Without insight into lurkers and lurking, our understanding of online groups is incomplete. Ignoring, dismissing, or misunderstanding lurking distorts knowledge of life online and may lead to inappropriate design of online environments. E-commerce entrepreneurs are particularly eager to find out why people lurk, in order to understand better how to entice them to participate in commercial interactions.

Designing and evaluating online communities: research speaks to emerging practice

What makes online communities successful? There are many indicators of success. Some are easily observed and measured, such as the number of people registered in the community, or the number who participate, or the number of messages posted, replied to or read over a certain period. How community members judge their community is also important. What do they like or dislike and how committed are they to the community? In this paper, we describe participatory community-centred development an approach that relies heavily on iterative evaluation. We then point out that standard evaluation techniques are inadequate for evaluating online communities because they do not address sociability. Finally, we propose two approaches from research that can be tailed for evaluating online communities. Both attempt to draw directly on what community users want. The first is rooted in ethnography and the second is a form of heuristic evaluation. The paper ends with an agenda for developing these approaches to make them practical yet robust.

Cyberinfrastructure for Social Action on National Priorities

Extensive research is needed to build upon currently used media and tools to foster wider participation, address national priorities, and deal with potential dangers associated with technology-mediated social participation.

Online communities for teachers and lifelong learners: a framework for comparing similarities and identifying differences in communities of practice and communities of interest

In recent years online and blended communities have become a popular topic among educationalists. In this paper we present a framework that supports the analysis, development and maintenance of online and blended communities. This is applied to two community case studies that differ along several key dimensions such as type of membership, the purpose of the communities, their policies and size. The analysis draws attention to the differences between the two types of communities. It also highlights the advantages and weaknesses of the framework with respect to these two case studies and suggests areas for future development. In the discussion that follows we highlight some key differences between this framework and Wengers work on Communities of Practice (COPs).

Towards knowledge-sharing and learning in virtual professional communities

This paper describes a program of research designed to understand how knowledge-sharing and learning can be supported in virtual communities. To conduct this research, we propose the development of a series of knowledge sharing tools and procedures followed by a rigorous evaluation of the use of these tools in real virtual community environments. The paper starts with a brief examination of relevant theory in knowledge management and learning. This leads to a comprehensive set of research questions. To investigate these questions, we next propose a set of tools for supporting collaboration, knowledge sharing and learning for distributed communities. Evaluation is also a vital element of this research.

Motivations Affecting Initial and Long-Term Participation in Citizen Science Projects in Three Countries

Reliance on volunteer participation for citizen science has become extremely popular. Cutting across disciplines, locations, and participation practices, hundreds of thousands of volunteers throughout the world are helping scientists accomplish tasks they could not otherwise perform. Although existing projects have demonstrated the value of involving volunteers in data collection, relatively few projects have been successful in maintaining volunteers’ continued involvement over long periods of time. Therefore, it is important to understand the temporal nature of volunteers’ motivations and their effect on participation practices, so that effective partnerships between volunteers and scientists can be established. This paper presents case studies of longitudinal participation practices in citizen science in three countries—the United States, India, and Costa Rica. The findings reveal a temporal process of participation, in which initial participation stems in most cases from self-directed motivations, such as personal interest. In contrast, long-term participation is more complex and includes both self-directed motivations and collaborative motivations.